Arab-Israeli Conflict

The Arab-Israeli Conflict (1948-present) is an ongoing long-term conflict between the Jewish state of Israel and the Muslim countries of the Arab League. Starting with the war for Israel's independence in 1948, the conflict has seen Israel defeat huge coalitions of Arab states in every war that they were presented with, with aid from the United States. Israel's reason for fighting was defending their Biblical homeland against Arab aggressors and anti-Semitism; the reason for the Arabs to fight was to massacre the Jews and make the Middle East completely Muslim. Although sidelined as a military power in the conflict, the Palestinian states were able to commit acts of terrorism to strike fear into civilians, but in 1993 Palestine made peace with Israel. Today, the main threats to Israel are the anti-Semitics Hamas and Hezbollah groups in Gaza and Lebanon-Syria, respectively, and the government of Syria.

Background
Both the Zionists and Arab nationalists were disappointed that World War I did not lead to the independence that they thought had been promised by the Allies.

Zionism and the Arab Revolt
During World War I, British leaders encouraged the Ottoman Empire's Arab subjects to rise in revolt in the hope of winning independence after the war. However, in 1917 British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, promised support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The World Zionist Congress had called for this in 1897, partly in response to anti-Semitism in Russia, where many Jews lived.

The British Mandate
After World War I, Britain ruled Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. Tension between Jews and Palestinians rose as Jewish immigration increased. Britain suppressed a major Palestinian revolt in 1936-39, but also restricted Jewish immigration, a move resisted by militant Jewish groups. The experience of the Holocaust meant that Jewish immigration and support for a Jewish state greatly increased after World War II. In November 1947, the United Nations decided to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. The Arab League rejected this plan as contrary to the wishes of the majority of the local population. However, Israel proclaimed its independence on 14 May 1948.

Wars
On 14 May 1948, as the British mandate over Palestine ended, David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. The next day, troops from the armies of Egypt, Transjordan (to be renamed Jordan in 1949), Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq attacked. The Arabs claimed that they were seeking to establish a unified, religiously neutral state of Palestine in accordance with the wishes of the non-Jewish majority of the population; Jews took note of anti-Semitic statements by some Arab leaders.

Although they were initially probably better-equipped, the Arab forces had no common strategy or command. The Israelis, meanwhile, felt they were fighting for their lives and had a strong and unified command. The Jewish militia, Haganah, was well trained and disciplined, and had bought arms from Europe, as well as receiving enough aid to equip itself with artillery, ammunition, and a small navy and air force. By the end of the war, the Israeli forces also greatly outnumbered those of their Arab opponents.

Two weeks of bitter fighting saw the Israelis halt the Arab offensives and gain ground. In further periods of fighting, interspersed with truces, the newly established Israeli Defense Force enlarged Israel's land corridor east to Jerusalem and captured new territory in Galilee in the north and the Negev in the south. The war ended in January 1949 with Israel occupying all of the old British Palestine mandate except the Gaza Strip, taken over by Egypt, and the West Bank, taken over by Jordan, Israel now held a substantially larger area than in the 1947 UN partition plan.

The approach to the war and the war itself were marked by atrocities on both sides. Many Palestinians were forced from their homes during the conflict, mostly settling as refugees in Gaza and the West Bank. In subsequent years a similarly large number of Jews migrated willingly and unwillingly to Israel from their homes in Arab countries. All these events have left a legacy of bitterness that persists in the 21st century.

The Suez Crisis
Following the 1948-49 war, border clashes and terrorist and counter-terrorist operations continued. The new Egyptian government under President Gamal Abdel Nasser was also seeking to end the long-standing Anglo-French involvement in his country. In 1955 Egypt closed the Gulf of Aqaba, thereby blockading Eilat, Israel's only outlet to the Red Sea. The subsequent Egyptian nationalization, in 1956, of the Suez Canal - owned mainly by the British government and French investors - provoked Britain and France to collude secretly with Israel. The plan was for Israel to invade Sinai, supposedly to forestall an Egyptian attack, giving Britain and France the pretext to seize the canal, while keeping the warring Israelis and Egyptians apart.

Israel duly attacked Egypt on 29 October and, following Nasser's refusal to accept a ceasefire, British and French forces attacked Egyptian bases. Then, on 5 November, they occupied Port Said at the entrance of the canal. Widespread condemnation of the attack from the United States and other nations, and a collapse in the value of the British pound, forced both the French and the British governments to suspend operations on 7 November.

This squalid event marked the end of any major British or French imperial role in the region. Israeli forces were successful in lifting the blockade of Eilat and reducing attacks from Gaza. UN peacekeepers then arrived in the region to keep the peace.

The Six-Day War
The Suez crisis of 1956 made the Egyptian president an Arab hero for successfully standing up to British and French forces. Nasser bolstered his armed forces with Soviet arms, while Israel bought state-of-the-art aircraft from France and tanks from Britain and the United States. Through the mid-1960s Israel and Syria also clashed especially fiercely along their border. Claiming that Israel was preparing an invasion of Syria, Nasser forced the UN Sinai peacekeepers to withdraw in May 1967 and, along with Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, massed troops along Israel's borders. Once again, Israel struck first.

On 5 June 9167, the Israeli air force launched a series of devastating raids against its enemies, virtually destroying the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian air forces. Israeli troops invaded sinai and reached the Suez Canal on 8 June. Its troops also occupied the entire West Bank, gaining control of the whole of Jerusalem for the first time, and seized the Golan Heights from Syria, advancing 48 kilometers (30 miles) towards Damascus, the Syrian capital. When the fighting stopped on 10 June, Israel had doubled the size of its territory, gained new defensible borders along the Suez Canal, the Jordan river, and the Golan Heights, and had removed the threat of enemy guns bombarding its cities.

Yom Kippur
The Six-Day War brought Israel military success but no better security, as none of the neighboring states would trade peace in return for lost territory. Egypt, in particular, was humiliated by the outcome of the war and its loss of Sinai, and waged a three-year campaign of raids and artillery fire across the Suez Canal. On 6 October 1973, its new leader, Anwar Sadat, planned a surprise attack against Israel in alliance with Syria to coincide with the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Egyptian troops crossed the canal and headed into Sinai, supported by surface-to-air missile batteries and portable anti-tank missiles that limited the traditional Israeli strengths of air and tank power. More than 100 Israeli planes were shot down by the Soviet-supplied missile launchers in the first days of the war.

By 9 October, the Egyptians had overstretched their lines of supply and outreached their defensive air cover and so ground to a halt. Supplied with new US equipment, the Israelis went on the offensive on 16 October. The Israelis broke through between two Egyptian armies and crossed to the west bank of the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian 3rd Army on the east bank.

To the north, Israel fought off a Syrian offensive against the Golan Heights and destroyed around 900 Syrian tanks in a massive battle. Its forces then advanced to within 40 kilometers of Damascus. A UN ceasefire on 24 October ended the Yom Kippur War, the fourth and, to date, final attempt by the Arab states to invade and overthrow Israel.

Aftermath
Israel and Egypt made peace, but conflict in the region continued. Israel kept much of the land it had captured and Palestinians fought to create a nation of their own.

Peace Talks
President Anwar Sadat of Egypt visited Jerusalem in 1977, marking the first recognition of Israel by an Arab head of state. Talks led to a peace agreement, signed in Washington DC, in 1979. Israel handed back the Sinai, but not Gaza, to Egypt by 1982.

Lebanon
Palestinian exiles set up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Jordan in 1964 to bring together Palestinian political parties. In 1970 the PLO moved its headquarters to Beirut, Lebanon, which was home to more than 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The PLO used the country as a base from which to fire rockets at northern Israel. In retaliation, Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982. Israeli tanks attacked targets in the Palestinian stronghold of West Beirut, while Christian militias allied to the Israelis attacked the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps, killing 800 people. International outrage forced Israel to withdraw from the city, leaving a residual force in the buffer zone that eventually withdrew in 2000.

Intifada
From the 1980s Israel established Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and extended its control of Jerusalem. Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied territories launched an uprising, the first "Intifada", against Israeli rule in 1987. Israel and the PLO recognized each other in the 1993 Oslo Accords and began moves towards Palestinian self-rule in Gaza and the West Bank. Political changes on both sides and continuing terrorist attacks and military clashes meant that progress was slow. A renewed intifada from 2000 saw tensions rise again. Israeli attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09 brought worldwide condemnation, although Israel cited continuing Palestinian terrorism as its justification.